Canada ABCP parties seek swift top court hearing

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian corporate investors owning
more than C$600 million ($562 million) of asset-backed
commercial paper have asked the Supreme Court of Canada to hear
their objections to a plan that would restructure the market,
which was worth C$32 billion before it seized up last summer.

According to the application, filed on Tuesday, "this case
raises fundamental issues relating to the proper interpretation
and application of insolvency legislation," and the outcome
will affect ABCP investors throughout the country, as well as
future Canadian restructurings.

An investor committee that spent months drafting the
intricate market-restructuring plan asked the top court to
expedite any appeal process. It suggested that responses to the
request for an appeal should be made by Friday, and any hearing
by the top court, if it occurs, was proposed for the week of
September 22.

The investor committee said the parties seeking the appeal
had consented to the timetable.

The plan is considered the largest and most complex
restructuring effort attempted in Canada, as it covers 20
different trusts that issued the short-term paper.

The investor committee said that any court delay beyond
September 30 would bring critical risks.

The longer the delay, the greater the risk that certain
banks crucial to the plan's implementation will withdraw,
spelling its end and leading to liquidation of the asset-backed
notes at depressed prices, Purdy Crawford, the lawyer who led
the investor committee, said in an August 26 affidavit.

But the corporate ABCP investors have argued for months
that the proposed restructuring, to be done under the
Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, should not include a
clause that shields the brokerages that sold the commercial
paper from lawsuits.
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